Blind
by authorwithissues
Summary: He was always just so blind as he was used as a naught but a tool, and doing the same to others. He never even realized it until it was far too late. Ed's POV. T because of his mouth. Old anime and movie spoilers.


_AWI: So, I give my warmest thanks to ZirciX for being the most awesome person EVER and not only offering to beta this but also actually performing the ACT of beta-ing it. So THANK YOU SO MUCH! You are the mortal of the millenium in my book! Thank ZirciX everyone and you'll get brownie points!_

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I am anything but your average Joe. Never have been. And I'm not just full of myself when I say this.

I have seen Hell. The Gate. A nightmare.

So much has been taken from me. So much. Even so, I doggedly pursue penance. Some form of forgiveness. But, I always seem to fool myself. I know I have already been forgiven, but I blind myself to it. Give myself the delusions that I _must_ make it up to them. The only one who really needs to give forgiveness is I.

I have seen too many friends and comrades fall. Family. So much that I nearly feel alone, yet I hardly am. I am always surrounded by people who really do understand. And care. But, so caught up in my quest for self-forgiveness am I that… I fail to see it: I am not alone, I am loved. Why do I always fail to see it?

My brother, I love him so much. It hurts. What I have put him through. It is as if _I_ am the one going through what he is. I feel everything he cannot. The pain in my chest.

Over and over again we are disappointed. We put all our faith into the thought that maybe, just maybe, we've finally found the one that will save us, make everything right, let me forgive myself just a fraction. But, no. We fail. Over and over and over again. Each time, my chest is ripped to shreds. It's almost as if I can't breathe. But I must. I must breathe for him, for he cannot. I get up again and move forward. That's what legs are for, aren't they?

So much we go through.

I hate being used. If I am not in control of myself, I just… I just… it feels as if all my efforts are for nothing. Stupid and petty. As if I am nothing more than a mindless doll, dancing for the crowd. I try desperately not to obey, but sometimes, I just can't tell. Then my bubble is all too painfully burst.

What was I working for? What was I _really_ working for? Putting my life on the line for? My soul? My very being? Am I nothing more than what others want me to be? What do _I_ want? No, am I even _allowed_ to want.

I hate it.

I drown. Constantly. My lungs burn and beg and beg for air, yet I, being the masochist I am, do not allow them. Then, when I really need the air the most, I attempt to allow them, only to find it is too late. I am trapped under the ice. No breathing hole in sight. Why did I not get air when I could? Why did I have to push myself so? Why can't I just fucking _breathe_!

Maybe I am insane. Perhaps I cracked under the pressure a long time ago and am just flying on autopilot now. Maybe I am already dead. Maybe I died a long time ago.

I need a diagnosis; however, I don't know how to turn the autopilot off. And, if I do, what will I do then? Will I just make a sharp nose-dive or crash headlong into a mountaintop or will I slowly coast down and down and down, oh so steadily, until I finally hit the ground and burn?

When I crossed over the Gate, I was finally given the proof that I wasn't dead. But, that had in fact sliced me up so bad that I could hardly feel anything any longer, so numb with pain was I.

In the Other World, I am so alone. I see faces, familiar faces that I long for, because now, I truly _am_ alone. I realize this and subconsciously reach for those who helped me through the haze in my World, only to find it isn't them. They only wear their faces.

I feel like I am burning at the stake every time I see even the back of Officer Hughes's head. Every time, I see the Hughes I knew, who died before I ever really woke up enough to appreciate.

I was always asleep, but now, after crossing the Gate, I am finally awakened from the haze. Only, I am met with a storm. Not the pleasant sunny afternoon everyone wishes for, but a violent storm with bolts of vicious lightning at my heels, chasing me down. I know that one day, one will finally strike me. And then I will truly die.

Hohenheim. That bastard. He abandoned me and Al and Mom. I hated him. He left us to burn. He left us to die. How ironic that now he is my only island in this raging sea.

Loneliness. It aches. I can feel it ever tugging at the recesses of my mind, ripping my chest to pieces. I cannot fight it.

I have indeed attempted to battle the beast, the ache, but I crashed and burned. I know nothing of This World. It is alien to me, completely foreign, yet so painfully familiar. In Amestris, I was _somebody_. Here, I am nothing but a madman.

All the pain and suffering I have gone through, the blood, the sweat, the fucking tears! They all say it did not happen. That I am delusional. That I am crazy. I hear them whisper behind my back. They whisper the same thing. Every one of them. _He should be locked up_. But… I'm not crazy! At least, not in the sense they accuse me of.

It happened! It was _real_! I had a family! I had a brother! Winry! Mustang! Hawkeye! Hughes! They were _real_! How could they have not been?

I feel like my head is splitting and my chest burns hotter and hotter.

_How could they not have been?_

If they were not real, then what have I really been living for? What was the point? Why am I even still _alive_?

I can feel myself slowly bleeding to death. I am so alone. I ache.

Alphonse. He is almost a carbon copy of Al. Every time I look at him, even glance at the back of his head, his very footsteps and habits. Every time, I see Al. I am in Heaven then. Bliss. I can feel I was not a total failure. That I actually did something _right_ for once. I never did anything right. Then, he opens his mouth and, just like all the others, tells me to wake up. To stop dreaming. In _Al_'s voice.

Why can't anybody see? I've never _been_ so awake in my _life_! How can he accuse me _now_ of seeing everything through the haze of sleep? I do not understand. Every time he does, I see Al. I see him tell me that I have failed. That I truly have failed him and everyone else. That I am just some selfish bastard that cannot _see_.

I want to go home. _Home_. This is not home. This is a nightmare. All I see is what I've done wrong. I don't even remember doing anything _right_ anymore.

I can feel myself dying. Dying. Dying.

It is a painful death. And one that is taking far too long.

But again, I repeat the same goddamn _fucking_ mistakes!

I am once again blind.

I once again do not _see_.

Alphonse. Noah. Hell, maybe even Officer Hughes. Maybe more.

They are ever present in This World just as the others were in the mine. And, again, I pay them no heed. I am once again drowning in my quest. I once again do not even realize when they assist me.

I am used. Yet again. I am so _blind_.


End file.
